The Shades of Autumn

I was going to name this entry 'Autumn blues', but Autumn isn't blue and 'Autumn Oranges' sounded just strange, so I thought 'The Shades of Autumn' should be okay. 

So, it's October again. The weather turned beautiful today, which is strange because usually, Autumn turns up in December where I live. However, I'm miserable because I'm not enjoying the good weather. I have an exam on 17th and a submission on 23rd, and life is just being sapped out of me by work. My exam is on writngs by Foucault, and I had to read too many articles by Foucault in a very short amount of time. Although I love Foucault, reading so much of him in a very short amount of time is counterproductive as I can't internalize it. Internalize might be the wrong word because it implies that I adopt it for myself without questioning it. Maybe 'praxis' would be a better word. Now only if I knew it's verb form :P

Anyway, it's already 10th October and NaNoWriMo is coming back again in another 21 days. I did start something last year, but that fell through horribly because the plot was so weak that I couldn't take it forward. I learnt a lot of lessons from last year's NaNoWriMo.

1. I cannot write for extended periods of time in first person.
2. I cannot write only romances or political/business drama or crime thrillers.
3. My plots are rubbish.

Yeah. So, I have no idea what to write for this NaNoWriMo. I really want to write something, though. I've never been able to write something long. Mostly because I lose interest because the plot sucks, but also because I frequently get writer's blocks. That's why I think it'd be a great idea to have a Beta (editor who gives inputs on the plot and other aspects) or a co-writer. If you're interested, please please please comment on this post. I don't want another NaNoWriMo to pass by with me doing nothing.

Happiness Collides. Swati.

Happiness collides,

With a little sorrow and mumbling lies.

Knew you from a time before,

Knew enough, to know you more.

You continue looking,

Straight into my eyes.

Talking in another language,

I couldn’t confide.

I still remember the softness

Of your beautiful eyes.

I miss the way you looked at me,

And how you made me smile.

All those pretty flowers,

On the day things went bad.

I also remember the day,

You left me, sad.

There’s this happiness,

And an old melancholy.

It’s like from another time,

We knew and when we met.

Formality and manners,

Greetings and words.

What have we come to-

From lovers to this?

I hug you tight,

And you hold me close.

We don’t talk of the past,

Just smile at us.

I still feel the fireworks,

The little, that are left.

I still feel the happiness,

And the sorrow, that we fell.

I cannot understand what this is,

What this meeting meant.

I have nothing bad to swear,

Only good feelings to bear.

So, one thing went wrong,

And it was a big blunder.

But, what we had,

I’d cherish forever.

Swati Jain

September 12, 2013

Joy

Drizzling little joy,

In another corner, little end.

The impending dark cloud,

Will move away.

Little rain, if falls,

Will make you happy, just stay.

And if it’s the dawn you wait for,

It will break through the sky

Bringing some hope

Some light, some life.

Water your lilies,

Peonies and orchids.

Tie them in a neat bunch,

And send it to my address.

The dew of the rain,

On those freshly plucked flowers,

The smell that they carry,

And their magical powers.

Aim for your wishes,

But do something, too.

Come up with hopes,

That won’t come true.

Smile at the disappointment,

If things don’t fall through.

Don’t get disheartened,

The rainbow’s coming soon.

Smile and open that book of joy again,

There’s another story,

A new happy end.

Just the turn the page,

And change the tune to another one.

Swati Jain

September 12, 2013

September Agonies. Swati

As the days towards September come closer,

The beats of my heart start to ache.

They pick me up slowly,

And take me to flashback,

Of four years ago.

They ride me slowly,

Wishing I could go back,

Back to the world,

Where, I still had you.

Not all fell apart,

Yet, nothing is quite the same.

Your absence has left me stranded,

Yet, I am glad your torment ended.

Back to those days,

Where you would slowly pat my head,

Where the place you lived in exist.

Back to the world,

Where, I still had you.

I am reminded and scared,

Pains to know,

You are not coming back.

How do I see you?

How do I talk?

How do I know, you hear me?

Tell me how do I get-

Back to the world,

Where, I had you with me.

Swati Jain

September 1, 2013

Dreams

So, I have this weird fascination with natural disasters. Volcano eruptions, Tsunamis, even sand storms- they are just so awe inspiring and absolutely beautiful. However, I'm in love with tornadoes. I've never witnessed a natural disaster, but if I had to witness one, I'd choose tornadoes. There's something very very powerful about them and along with being powerful, they're beautiful. The amount of destruction they can cause is so intense and I've never been someone who's afraid of destruction. 
I'm not sure what the tornado is a metaphor for, but I have recurrent dreams about it. And even in my dreams, I want to be closer and closer to it, situate myself in its eye, experience the calm with destruction all around me.

The first dream I remember about having a tornado is being in a flat with my family. Suddenly, the lights go out and the alarms are blaring in warning. I know that we need to move out of the house but I can't describe the why yet. I look out of the window to see a tornado with the diameter of half the city moving towards me. Not in a random direction, but towards me. I don't know how I know this, but I know it is targeting only me. We move out quickly and get in the car. The tornado chases us. Soon after, I persuade my family to get out of the car. I take the car away from the city and the tornado's closing on me. But as soon as it touches the car, it disappears.
The second dream I had of tornadoes was during a metro journey in a desert. It was only me and my family in the whole metro and we were travelling fairly calmly when suddenly, the sky grows dark. Down comes one tornado. Then two. And they keep coming until they're five. And then they come for me. All of us are huddled in one compartment. The other compartments and the engine are blown away but our compartment's still moving on the track. The tornadoes surround us, but then suddenly, they disappear.
The latest tornado dream I had was yesterday. I was returning from college to home when a warning for a tornado rang out in our city. Dad offered to come and fetch me but I insisted on travelling in the metro. It was evening and the sky was pitch black. When the tornado came, I could see that it wasn't made of dust, but tar. It came very close to the metro tracks and my metro but it dissipated. But then it came back again and I was worried that the metro track will be destroyed. I wouldn't have minded dying in the tornado but I thought I'd die of the fall due to property damage rather than in a tornado and that was not acceptable to me.  Anyway, irrespective of what I wanted, the tornado barreling through the metro without causing any damage. I was in its eye for about a second, but so were the others. The tornado went on to another path, and the metro stopped at the next station. Then I had to call my dad to pick me up. I could see the tornado passing us by through the car window.

Despite these exciting dreams, I live in a pressure zone where the chances of tornadoes are next to zero. All we have here are earthquakes which are so light that I can't even feel them ._.

The Mandatory Superhero Discussion

So, it's been a very long while (a month) since I posted anything. Honestly, I have no clue how I posted what I did last month. I was so freaked out by the prospect of my final exams that I don't remember anything about May except watching Iron Man 3 twice and Bombay Talkies.

Tbh, I'm looking forward to Avengers 2 after Iron Man 3 (No spoilers for anyone, sorry). But before that, I'd love to see Captain America 1 and 2 (yes, I haven't seen Captain America 1. I'm missing out on all the Steve Rogers goodness D:). I'll probably get the first part from one of my friends (ARE YOU READING THIS, SIDDHANT?). I've never exactly been interested in Thor, mostly because he's an alien (I'll come to why I don't like alien superheroes in a while). But I'd like to read the comics at least. He's a part of the Avengers. I should really watch Thor 1 and 2 before Avengers 2. 

So, about why I don't like alien superheroes- I think it's because I like to think of superheroes in a very different way. For me, superheroes don't only have superpowers. They've also got a certain depth and it is that depth that makes them use their powers the way they do. For example, I dislike Batman (No hate please) because I feel that witnessing the murder of his parents does not justify his silent vigilante persona completely. I could understand him trying to avenge the death of his parents. But the fuel does run out, you know. Trying to keep a watch over a city so that 'good' and 'justice' can prevail is something that I cannot imagine without  a reason. I will also inform the readers that I have not seen the Nolan trilogy.

For me, superheroes are ordinary people with extraordinary powers and it is what happens to them as ordinary people that affects what they choose to do with their powers.  For example, Batman might be the justice system himself, but a guy robbing a woman of her jewellery is not personal to him. On the other hand, the villains that Iron Man have always attacked him very personally. I can't imagine anyone fighting for 'good' or 'right', but I can imagine people fighting in accordance with what is right for them at a personal level. I don't think that this makes Iron Man less of a superhero than Batman because a superhero is supposed to stand for an overarching sense of morality. But in today's world, every one has their own moral code and it's hard to label one particular thing as good or evil. That's why superheroes like Batman and Superman (read DC superheroes) don't work for me. 

However, I feel like I'm doing an injustice to Thor by saying that he's not exactly a superhero because he's an alien (and not a human). He might be from outer space, but what gives me the right to say that he's not human? Seeing his and Loki's relationship and how hard he fights for it (because Loki matters to him), I feel that he's perfectly capable of feeling and understanding human emotions. He might be from a great warrior race, but his reasons for fighting are pretty much personal. 

Some people might also attack me from the point of view of Captain America. Captain America has an overarching sense of right and wrong, what with being from the 1940s. But I still think that his reasons for fighting in 2012 are perfectly personal. He fights because that's all he knows that hasn't changed in the 70 years he's been down below. He fights because it gives him a sense of familiarity, even though his enemies seem to be chosen by S.H.I.E.L.D. However, thanks to the dialogues in Avengers, Captain America does not appear as a brainless automaton. He acknowledges that 'Fury has the same blood on his hands as Loki does', but he chooses to eradicate the bigger threat to the lives of people. His choice comes from what he knows to be 'right', and his kind of 'right' is pretty much redundant in today's world. I like the fact that the other characters seek to provide other kinds of 'rights' for the viewers and establish that no 'right' is superior or inferior to any other. Captain America's morality, in this case, becomes just one of the many. That's why I like the 'man out of time' plot of his story :D

I wrote a message to one of my friends during exams about superheroes. It was quite a general statement, but if I find it someday, I'll put it up here. It was very good :P

Till next time, lovelies!

Love is like a Plastic Bag

I wrote this while studying Neruda's 'Tonight I Can Write'. Personally, I don't like Neruda because he's too mainstream about things. 'Tonight I Can Write' is a poem about love, which is as mainstream as it can get, and I cannot connect to that at all. So I thought I'd write my own love 'something' which I could connect to. The thing about this 'something' is that I'm unsure whether to label it as a prose piece or a poem. So, let's think of it as a prose-poem, yeah? 

Love starts off as being a plastic bag. You're addicted to it. It feels as though you won't be able to function without it. It is easy and comfortable and convenient to carry around and hard to tear. And you keep finding it on the street corners in heaps; used and discarded by people before you. 

And then, love transforms into a plastic bag. It envelops you. It feels as if it is growing tighter around you. It isolates you from everything else. It begins to suffocate you. It doesn't seem to want to let go of you and you're worried that it will kill you. So you throw it away in a street corner, just like people before you.  

 So... What do you guys think?

I Feel (Un)Pretty

Till the time I was 17, I believed that I was ugly with all my heart.
I had braces till I was 17. My hair was a mess that I didn't want to look at. I had glasses. I was (still am) super skinny. So, basically, I was a super nerd and super ugly. I felt like Betty in Ugly Betty. Except that I though Betty had scope for improvement and I didn't.

Some days, I still can't believe that some people think of me as pretty. My glasses are gone (I wear lenses), my braces got removed, my hair's manageable now (all thanks to Habib's hair saloon). But I've been thinking that I was ugly for so long that it's hard for me to think of myself any other way.

Some days I wake up and don't want to look in the mirror for the fear of what I would see in it. When I'm relaxing at home, the hair becomes a mess, the glasses come back and I feel like I'm 17 again (which is not a very happy thing for me).

But then, there are days when 2 out of 5 people I meet compliment me on something or the other. And I realized that looks aren't such a big deal. I know some really people who are really pretty. But this doesn't ensure that they're good people too. And then, sometimes, it's too much of an effort to look good, so I don't really care if people think of me as pretty or zombie. 

I think all I really need is for people to know that I can be pretty when I try. But more importantly, I'm a good person, regardless of my looks.

The Human Condition

You know, I read about Modernism and Post-Modernism modes of existence. I read Beckett, I read Lawerence, I read Marquez. And because I've read all this and known what theose authors wanted to express, I analyzed how we live today (Yeah, that's what you'll do if you take up English Honours too).

I figured that we've moved away from the Post Modern way of existence. There is no celebration of our fractured identity today. We are not happy about being broken. We, as pieces, have been scattered forever. The realization struck with Modernism. People wanted to go back to thinking that they were whole, though. They did not know how to live like an unassembled jigsaw puzzle. Post Modernists, on the other hand, celebrated this kind of existence, where we are each other- different in shape, maybe, but still the same. And that was a relief. Being same. Being like everyone else.

In these times of Post- Post Modernism, I look around me and I feel that the attitude to our existence has changed drastically. We've resigned ourselves to being broken, unassembled, scattered. But it's not a very passive acceptance. When I say resignation, a certain kind of cynicism accompanies this. We recognize that we were never whole to begin with and hope is so lacking in us now that it's turned us into first class cynics.

There is lesser belief in love, God, hope. We've sort of just given up; rolled over and surrendered ourselves to the lack of goodness, wholeness in the world. Everything is tainted by dissatisfaction and sneers, as if we can see right through everything and recognize that everything we're surrounded by is as hollow as us. There is no respite from such existence- not in nature, not in God, not in anything. If there's anything that is actually believed in, it is the vices in everything.

Self confessional style of writing emerges from this way of existence (which is not the same as living anymore. We are not alive. We don't live). With pop cultural imagery and metaphors and and brutally honest statements, expression of lack becomes a dagger to our hearts and souls. It pinches our consciousness and forces us to realize the truth of life- everything is pointless. 

And I'm the part of this Post- Post Modernist human condition and I don't believe in goodness and God. But somewhere, I wish I did.

Of Murakami and Love

So. It’s Valentine’s Day.

Today, I walked about 7 km today in total. Murakami talks about running in one of his work whose name I forgot. I even forgot what he says about running. I was trying to think up of a link between his runs and my walks but because I had abandoned the book after 50 pages, I must not have agreed with what he had to say about running.

The first time I actually recognized my desire to walk was right after when I came back from Getaway Camp in Sattal. After doing intense physical activities like playing dodgeball for what seemed like a couple of hours and trekking everyday for three days, I come back to Delhi and find that I am the least physically active person because I couldn’t find anything to do here. By the evening of my first day back here, I grew so restless that I knew I had to do something. So I went on a leisurely 5 km walk.

During that 5 km walk, I contemplated this sudden urge to do something. It might have been a change in biological clock, but my body adapts to change in schedules very quickly. Also, I have been living in this monstrous city for longer than I had been in Sattal. It should’ve been like falling back to my daily routine.

The answer was so bloody simple that I couldn’t believe it. Walking for me is cathartic. It purges all the mental stress I have, thanks to living in a city. The physical activity distracts me from my mental activities and I can sleep so much better at night.

I think everyone has something or the other that gives them such peace. And I think all of us require peace, especially because of the world we live in.

Oh, and about that Valentine’s Day comment? This is another year that went by when I was single, so I’m not going to say anything  ._.

Dilemma

My fascination with a lot of things is to do with what I don't know about them. I make this statement in the context of my recent visit to this place called Sattal. 

Sattal left me with a feeling that I should've realized something, but I was leaving the place when I recognized that I have failed to realize that thing. I have no idea about the nature of what I should've realized but I know that there is something rankling in my brain, waiting for the right slot to fit into. However, there is no imposition upon me to find that slot for the rankling piece. I just feel like I was this close to knowing something, and before I could, I had to leave.

This mystified something is calling me back to that place. I've heard people say that the mountains call to them. One of my friends says that what I feel isn't unusual. Mountains do that to you. You feel like you will find something about yourself and the world. 

I have no idea about how true it is and if there are answers to my in-articulated questions. Nature is so much bigger than us. 

We are mere humans. How can we expect to unravel all the secrets of nature that might culminate into answers to our mute question? Is my coming back to Sattal to look for answers a fruitless exercise?

Even if I don't find answers to my questions there, I'd still like to go back. You can't marvel over the enormosity of nature in the cities, where the concrete jungles do nothing but suffocate you. You can't realize how small you actually are because in the cities, you've built everything according to your size.

----------

My fascination with a lot of things has to do with what I do know about them. For instance, I feel that sunsets are better in the cities than in the mountains. There is nothing mystical about the sunset for me. Sunsets signify the end of a day without the certainty of the other. And this uncertainty can exist only in the cities, because they are representative of the human condition of mortality.

 I never felt the sunset in Sattal. Every evening brought with itself the promise of a new day. 

I'd like to go back again for a lot of reasons. But the main reason why I'd want to go back to Sattal is because it promises me something that I do not have here- anonymity, and by extension, immortality.

PS- This picture is clicked by me.

Winter Smiles and Woes

Let me start with the woes (because they came first :P)

About a month ago, I met up with a friend and he asked me for ideas for torture methods for his latest novel. So I thought about what would cause the most excruciating pain. I gave him an answer about two weeks late but the torture method I suggested could scare the living daylights out of the minds of the writers of Criminal Minds. Anyway, I have always known that toes and feet are a sensitive and important and sensitive parts of the human body. It is only this week I realized how sensitive ._.

My feet are mildly frostbitten. What with the temperature dropping to 1.6 degrees here and my feet lacking proper blood circulation, it seems obvious that I'd get frostbitten. But Merlin, this realization doesn't make the mild frostbite any better. My feet itched and hurt so bad that it was almost impossible to walk. I know how I spent three days hobbling around, waking up in the middle of the night because it itched and hurt so bad. But the worst part wasn't the hurt. It was the itch. I couldn't scratch my toes because they were red and blue and swollen and scratching would only make the itch worse. And the level of frustration I had to face was astounding. The itch would go on for hours and I would be on the verge of tears because I didn't know how to make it better. Until the day before yesterday, I didn't know my feet were frostbitten either. Frostbite is the worst kind of torture there is. There is barely anything worse than this. I contemplated ripping out my toes, you know. And to be truthful, that would have been less painful than the itch. Thankfully, before it could come to  that, I saw the sweet doctor (bless his soul) and he gave me medicines for the itching and the pain and assured me that it'll be okay in a week T_T

I had gone for a play called 'Maybe This Summer' last week, until last week, I hadn't seen a good play, you know. If the acting and execution was good, there would be some problem with the script and vice versa. So after I came out of the auditorium after watching 'Maybe This Summer', I said, "I wish I could see a play in which everything's perfect." So apparently, some deity or the other listened to me. Yesterday, I was feeling better as compared to the previous few days. I had made plans to see a play called 'Metamorphoses' with my friends. 'Metamorphoses' was a myth about myths. It is unbelievable until you see it. It basically took from Ovid's 'Metamorphosis'. The play adapted and enacted nine myths from Ovid's works. The actors were absolutely splendid. The spectators were drawn into the play as the whole auditorium was the stage for the actors. The myth that I thought was best enacted was the myth of Erysichthon, a Thessalian king who chopped down the sacred grove of Demeter and was cursed with hunger till he devoured himself. The thing I liked the most about it was when Hunger crawled onto the raised platform in the auditorium to Erysichthon and jumped him. There was a ten second choreography between Erysichthon and Hunger which depicts Hunger devouring the king sensually. I almost had a nosebleed.

Despite my mildly frostbitten toes (and I'm going to deny this if, Merlin forbid, the itching starts again) but I think 'Metamorphoses' made up for my absolutely shitty week.

Till next time, guys! :D

PS- The photos haven't been clicked by me. I take them off the net :P

The Case of 'Damini'

There has been a lot of hype in my country about a recent rape case. Apparently, a girl got raped in a moving bus at 8:30 pm by 6 men. One of them was the bus driver, I think. They made her boyfriend watch her get raped. And she got raped very brutally. As in, they wrenched out her uterus and threw it on the road. She died.

The point of this blog is not to sympathize with the girl (although I do). This blog is about the reaction of the people, rape as a problem and possible solutions to it.

In a country like India, there are too many rapes to keep count of and most of them don't even get reported. This case struck out because it took place in the capital. If it had been in a village, no one would have even known about it, and they wouldn't have lined up in front of a  national monument to avenge the rural victim. I understand that this is because of the lack of awareness of the cases. If people were more aware of the rapes happening around them (especially in rural areas where violence is statistically higher), they'd protest more. But the fact is, stuff like this keeps happening. And the public doesn't even know half the cases. I'm outraged at the extreme reaction of the public to this case, when there are cases similar to this that keep happening in some corner of the country or the other. People have concentrated on this case so much that they don't see anything apart from the punishment for those 6 men. They don't realize that there are  6 million more like them in the country. In an attempt to get justice for the girl, they are ignoring the larger picture of the rapes that happen in the country. 

I would like to make myself clear- I do not, in any way, support the rapists. Having said that, I do think that the public is ridiculous in its demand to castrate/hang the rapists. What good will it do? How will the girl be at peace if her rapists were killed but there were many more roaming around, looking for victims like her?

Instead of thinking rashly, we must realize a few things. And on top of the list is a fact that RAPE IS NOT ABOUT GENDERED VIOLENCE. RAPE IS ABOUT DOMINANCE. I don't understand how anyone can think that people rape exclusively because they're sexually frustrated. That might be true for some deranged cases, but most of the time, raping someone is about feeling powerful. Violating someone gives the rapist a sense of power that might be missing from the rapist's real life. Why do you think most rapists belong to lower classes? They don't have power in their social, political and economic lives. So, they achieve a sense of power missing from their lives by raping people. And honestly,I don't exactly blame them. Who knows- if I was in their position, I might do the same. 

Let's not deceive ourselves here. All of us lust for power in one form or the other. All of us crave subjects to our power. It is actually visible in all kind of structures that exist. For example, your job. Being promoted gives you a sense of elation because you're moving up on the ladder. This means you have more subjects to control and exercise your power on. It makes you feel superior and it feeds your self esteem/ego. But we must think about the subjects too. What about the people who don't have this power in any aspect of their lives? Obviously, this lust for power then manifests in them sexually because they can't have it in any other aspect of their lives. And that's how rape comes into the picture.

Because rape is about power, it becomes a social problem rather than one of law and order. It's not exactly the State's fault if everyone's power hungry, is it? It's a problem that we as a society have to tackle. So, there are two ways we can go from here- not be power hungry or create opportunities so that every person can feel empowered in at least one of the non sexual aspects of their lives. I don't think the former is very likely, but we can brainstorm and try to make the latter possible. 

It won't matter if you get rapists hung or have them castrated or put them under surveillance. It's not going to make a change in the society. The time is past when people could be disciplined by example. We have evolved and none of the old methods of bringing about a change will work now. Unless we can actually see the bigger picture, we will continue to stick to the demands of hanging/castration and blaming the government. And I assure you- in the long run, all these accusations and demands will lead us nowhere. Hanging/castration are immediate and shallow solutions to a problem that is much bigger in nature. If we have to eradicate rape as a problem, we need to pull it out from its roots and not just trim it.